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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
The Soviet Union and Soviet bloc involvement with Laos
originated as a secondary element in the East-West contest
over the
communist-led revolution in Vietnam and in the Sino-Soiet
rivalry
that this contest exacerbated. Even though the Laos
subtheater was
formally neutralized by the Geneva Agreement of 1962, the
superpower involvement in Laos continued in the form of
military
supplies, advice, and diplomatic and propaganda support to
the
opposing sides up to the end of the war. The succeeding
period of
coalition government in Vientiane lasted fewer than two
years and
left the Soviets not only enjoying the prestige of
supporting the
winning party--the Marxist-Leninist LPRP, which by then
had
publicly revealed itself--but also holding the bag of vast
economic
development needs in a nation losing its most skilled
persons
across the border to the West. The Soviet Union had helped
its
friends prevail over the opponents of the revolution, but
the
Marxist-Leninist model for building up an overwhelmingly
agricultural nation was not effective with the complaisant
Lao
peasantry.
Since 1989 aid from the Soviet Union and its successor
states--
which once accounted for more than half the aid to Laos
and
approximately 1,500 technicians and advisers--has slowly
dwindled.
The memorial to Soviet efforts in Laos lies in dozens of
projects
such as bridges, roads, airports, hospitals, and broadcast
facilities; in tons of military equipment, including MiG
jet
fighters and air transports; and in the hundreds of
students with
a faltering command of the Russian language, some of whom
are
trained for such jobs as railroad operator or circus
clown, for
which Laos has no market.
The Laotian leadership has resolutely sought to take up
the
slack among its previous bilateral and multilateral
donors. By 1990
bilateral external assistance disbursed by Russia was down
to 36
percent of the total, from a previous 60 percent; Hungary,
the
former German Democratic Republic (East Germany),
Mongolia, and
Vietnam contributed a mere 3.7 per percent. The number of
student
fellowships--usually 300 per year--decreased dramatically.
The
downward spiral continued as the Russians shifted their
dwindling
influence in the region to cooperation with the five
permanent
members of the UN in settling the war in Cambodia. And, in
a
further move away from dependence, the coming generation
of
national leaders felt anxious about obtaining useful
education in
the West for their children, even if they could still get
by with
Vietnamese and French.
Data as of July 1994
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